One of the things I’ve been focusing on more recently is my skincare routine. Now that I work and rest in the same space, I’ve been able to spend more time pampering my skin—compared to when I was out and about when I would take just enough time to wash off makeup at the end of the day before going to bed.

Despite spending a lot more time on my skincare routine, it feels like my skin just isn’t getting better: It isn’t getting any softer and there are only so many times you can blame a breakout on stress. Since I couldn’t exactly go out and look for better products, I tried to figure out if there were different ways to apply the stuff I have now… which is when I realized that I’ve been doing my skincare routine wrong all this time.

This, while your skin is already adjusting to wearing face masks more or being in front of laptop and cellphone screens for longer hours, can do a lot of damage to your skin. So if you’re like me and your skincare routine needs some fixing, here’s a list of expert tips to help you out.

Serum

A skincare product that I don’t use very often, but should, are serums. I’ve used serums sparingly, mostly because I used to think it was a product that should be used every two weeks or I forget to massage it onto my face after taking a bath.

Turns out massaging serums into my face doesn’t help my skin absorb its nutrients better. Experts have instead recommended patting it on before you add moisturizer and other products to your skin, and letting it sit for a few moments to give your skin some time to absorb the serum on its own.

Eye Cream

For the longest time, I assumed eye cream was designed to target just the dark circles under my eyes… which was why I would only apply it to that area under my eyes and nowhere else. Since I kept forgetting to put it on in the morning, I almost always put on eye cream at night to let it seep into my skin while I slept.

And while it is true that it’s better for your skin to absorb eye cream on its own, it works better when it’s applied all over your eye zone (including the brow bone). Experts also recommend gently dabbing on the cream in the morning, when our blood flow is more active, to ensure that most of it is absorbed by our skin.

Cleanser

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDh7HgE4ei4

One element of my skincare routine that I can’t do without is the cleanser. It’s the one product I don’t forget to use on my face, scrubbing my skin clean before I put on a full face of makeup in the mornings and taking off my makeup and wiping away the dirt on my face before I go to bed.

While vigorously scrubbing my face clean feels almost therapeutic sometimes, being rough isn’t actually doing a lot for my skin. I’ve since resorted to using a sonic cleanser brush to make sure I get all the dirt off without being too rough and to work the cleanser into my skin.

Clay mask

The first time I tried a clay mask, it was an attempt to get rid of the smaller pimples that my regular skincare routine couldn’t seem to fix. After carefully applying the mask to my face, I let it sit on my face until it dried—thinking it would be more effective in sucking out any of the excess oils in my face and clear up my skin.

It ended up doing a lot more damage on my skin since it absorbed the moisture my skin needed and left it feeling dry. To prevent that, wash the mask off your skin when you start to see it drying and if it still feels kind of sticky.

Header photo by Anastasiia Ostapovych on Unsplash

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